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Alan Hubbard: How England’s saviour Gordon Banks was robbed of his ultimate goal

Safe as the Banks of England. That’s what they used to say about the nation’s greatest-ever goalkeeper.

The funeral of Gordon Banks will take place at Stoke Minster on March 4. The service for the England and Stoke City legend, who died last week aged 81, happens to be on the 47th anniversary of the club's League Cup win at Wembley - a triumph in which he was as proud to have played a major role as he did in England’ s one and only World Cup final victory in 1966.

Footballing royalty is expected to descend on the Potteries for a final farewell to an England World Cup winner who was held in the very highest esteem, as a player and a man.

It will be reminiscent of the funeral of Sir Stanley Matthews, Banks's predecessor as Stoke City president, which was also held at Stoke Minster.

On that occasion back March 3 in 2000, tens of thousands of people lined a 12-mile route taken by the cortege, past the old Victoria Ground and the then-Britannia Stadium.

Note the "Sir" Stanley Matthews. Football is convinced a similar prefix should bave been affixed to the name of Gordon Banks, surely as equally deserving of taking the knee at the Palace as Sir Stan and the England manager Sir Alf Ramsey plus just two of the Class of ’66, the iconic Bobby Charlton and hat-trick legend Geoff Hurst, awarded their K’s in 1994 and 1998 respectively.

Astonishingly, Banks reportedly did not receive the top gong after paperwork was lost by Government officials.

Apparently he was was due to receive the honour but an administrative cock-up is said to have led to a delay that wasn't corrected in time before before his death.

There had been a nationwide petition, organised by some of his Stoke team-mates two years ago, for him to be accorded that knighthood. But the paperwork was said to have been mislaid by officers at the Government's Honours Committee.

Sometimes you wonder if the civil service is as hopelessly inept as the politicians now making such a Dogs’ Brexit of leaving the European Union.

As Pelé recalled last week, "I hit that header exactly where I wanted it to go. And I was ready to celebrate. But this man Banks appeared in my sight, like a kind of blue phantom. He did something didn’t believe was possible. Even now, when I watch it, I can’t believe it."

Yet Banks did not even regard it as the greatest save of his career.

He claimed his greatest moment among hundreds of great saves was stopping a penalty in Stoke’s League Cup second leg semi-final with West Ham United. Ironically the penalty taker was Banks’s England team-mate Geofff Hurst. Banks got both hands to a thundering shot to push it over the bar.

Banks was a modest, unassuming bloke, who lost an eye in a crash and a kidney to cancer.

To be frank, I am not overly enthusiastic about Britain’s seriously flawed honours system which sees great achievers like Banks and Bobby Moore, the only Englishman to lift the World Cup, ignored for deserved knighthoods, while top gongs are awarded to crooks, spivs and charlatans from the worlds of poisonous politicians and and dodgy financiers.

Like Mooro, plain Mr Gordon Banks may never have been a knight but he certainly gave us many wonderful nights to remember.

Timeline

About the author

Alan Hubbard is a sports columnist for the Independent on Sunday and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Games, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.

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Fact of the day

At the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Iranian judoka Arash Miresmaeili was disqualified for weighing in at nearly four pounds above the limit for his weight class of his under-66 kilograms match against an Israeli opponent Ehud Vaks in the first round. It was claimed Miresmaeili had gone on an eating binge to protest the International Olympic Committee's recognition of the state of Israel. Iran does not recognise the state of Israel, and Miresmaeili's actions won praise from high-ranking Iranian officials. Mohammad Khatami, the country's President at the time, was quoted as saying Miresmaili's actions would be "recorded in the history of Iranian glories". He was later awarded $125,000 by the Government - the same amount given to Olympic gold medallists.

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